Take It Apart, Put It Back Together Even Better
by Deathly Noted
Summary: Mello drops his rosary down the sink, setting off a strange chain of events... well, maybe not that strange, considering the way Matt felt about Mello.


"Hey Mello, did you say you wanted dark chocolate or milk chocolate? I couldn't remember so I got a few types…" Matt said, juggling two grocery bags in his arms as he closed the door to their apartment with his foot, smearing some mud on it in the process and adding to the overall dinginess of their abode. Not that Matt cared, as long as Mello was there, and of course his PlayStation.

Surprisingly Mello hadn't greeted him by now as he usually did, although 'greet' wasn't exactly the right way to describe it… it wasn't like they exchanged pleasantries or hugs, but in most cases the blonde did at least shout out some sort of complaint or dart over to take whatever he had asked Matt to get him before returning to his laptop without so much as a thanks.

"Mello?" he asked again, plopping the grocery bags on the kitchen table, even though he had already searched essentially the whole apartment just by walking the twenty feet from the front door to the fridge. The kitchen, living room, and bedroom were all condensed into one living space, which was so tiny that, against all advertising, it was only really suited for one person and maybe some cockroaches and rats to live in, if that. How Mello and Matt managed to cram themselves into their sardine can of an apartment without driving each other crazy was something of a mystery, but it played out something like this: Matt would hog the couch while Mello rotated between the armchair, kitchen table, and bed. If he wasn't in any of those places, then there was only one place left to check, and that was the bathroom, which in this case could appropriately be called a water closet since most likely it had originally been intended for storage. Mello took enough showers in a day to make up for all the ones Matt missed, so that was probably what he was doing at the moment, that or taking a really long shit. Either way after so many years of rooming together Mello and Matt had little respect for one another's privacy, so Matt had no qualms about opening the door without knocking when he discovered it was unlocked. Now Matt was pretty jaded for his age, but still he found himself blinking in confusion at the sight before him because as it turned out, Mello had this odd but not entirely unpleasant tendency to surprise him even when nothing else could.

"…What the hell are you doing?" Matt asked with a tone that implied 'this time'. Mello was lying on his back beneath the sink and had literally dismantled the plumbing, such that various pipes and bolts were scattered across the floor like a hundred well-placed booby-traps preventing Matt from setting foot into the room. Not that he really wanted to, if the water pooling on the floor and the curses streaming from Mello's lips were anything to go by, so Matt simply leaned against the doorframe and waited patiently for Mello's latest and greatest bout of swearing to subside.

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing, dipshit?" Mello snapped at last, rather unhelpfully.

"Let me guess, you dropped your wedding ring down the sink," Matt answered dryly. He couldn't really see Mello's expression since he was in the shadow of the basin, but he was probably scowling right about now. The guy seriously needed to loosen up, in Matt's humble opinion, which really didn't count for much when Mello was a hundred times more opinionated. Still, everyday Matt did what he could to further that goal, which in this case meant providing Mello with his chocolate fix.

"I got your chocolate," Matt said, tossing a bar he had brought with him into the bathroom in Mello's direction. Unfortunately Matt's physical coordination in reality was rather poor compared to his epic button-mashing skills in virtual reality, so the chocolate bar landed on Mello's crotch instead of his stomach where Matt had been aiming for, causing Mello to jolt and bump his head on the sink above him. Oops.

After readjusting his abused balls through the leather of his pants and shouting the obligatory insults in Matt's direction, Mello grabbed a wrench, and for a split second Matt flinched as he thought it was going to be hurled in his direction – but then Mello continued to work, without even attempting to trip Matt to the floor or kick his shin or something petty like that as he usually would have. Hell, he hadn't even touched his chocolate bar, even though he'd been the one to send Matt out to the convenience store in the middle of the night to buy some in the first place. This was strange.

"Can I help?" Matt offered, realizing that Mello was pretty serious about remodeling their bathroom or whatever the fuck he was up to at 3am and that he would probably flood the apartment or accidentally fall asleep and drown himself in two inches of water before he would quit, even though judging by the state of the bathroom Mello didn't know what he was doing. Although Mello liked to think otherwise, knowing how to do something in theory didn't necessarily equate to being able to perform the task in actuality, so his genius was often more a curse than a gift when it led to him being overconfident in his own abilities. In any case, neither Mello nor Matt were professional plumbers, which was what they were probably going to need to clean up the mess that Mello had created.

"I don't need your help," Mello responded stubbornly, even as one of the pipes made an unpleasant cracking sound, which was only to be expected what with the way Mello was. Matt was still amazed that Mello had managed to put aside his pride for the whole thirty seconds it took to dial Matt's number on the phone and ask for his assistance on the Kira case, but then he figured that scar on his friend's face had something to do with it.

"Okay then," Matt replied. "But seriously, what's up?"

"…I really did drop it down the sink. My rosary," Mello said at last, sounding extremely reluctant to be doing so. He had always been loath to admit his shortcomings, failures, and mistakes, however miniscule. Probably he was expecting Matt to laugh it off like he always did, but he should have known better that even Matt couldn't be that careless, considering the circumstances. Mello had had that rosary even back at Wammy's House, and though he had never said so directly, Matt always figured it was some sort of memento from his family. Most of the orphans at Wammy's House didn't have even that small luxury, so Matt knew how important that must've been to Mello on some level that his friend would probably never acknowledge, not even to himself. Matt got a sick feeling in his stomach just thinking about how Mello must've been feeling right now.

Without so much as a word, because really they weren't necessary when it came to his relationship with Mello, Matt made his way through the minefield of pipes and over to the sink, looking rather like he was playing hopscotch with the way he had to dodge this obstacle and that. He crouched down silently and reached around to examine the pipe that his friend was currently mangling, ignoring Mello's protest that he had it under control. A lot of the time Mello needed help and just wouldn't admit it, and if Mello was serious about not wanting it then that would be clear enough in a moment. Mello had never hesitated to shove him to the ground or punch him straight out if Matt pushed it too far and pissed him off enough, but in this case, Matt was willing to risk it if he had any chance at all of helping Mello out with his problem. Matt figured he might have better luck since he was good with rewiring computers and fixing cars, and they were kind of similar, right? Well, not really, but even then he didn't need to know much about plumbing to assess the situation.

"There's no way it's still stuck in here, Mello, it must've gone straight through. You're beating a dead horse here," Matt said, feeling rather like an asshole, but at the same time he knew that sometimes Mello needed to hear it. Mello would work himself to exhaustion on hopeless causes, convinced that he just wasn't trying hard enough, when really the situation was impossible and it wasn't his fault. It was pretty sad, actually, but that was what Wammy's House had done to him. Matt would've hated the place, if it hadn't brought him and Mello together. Maybe he still hated it.

Mello didn't speak, but his body language said more than enough as he hesitated, lowered his gloved hand, and then clenched it on his leather-clad thigh, still not looking Matt in the eye. He continued to stare blankly at the piping for a moment, his blonde hair splayed like a crooked halo around his head, until finally he lifted himself up onto his elbows and got out from under the sink. Matt followed his lead, and they stood up at the same moment, ending up only about a foot and a half apart and close enough to smell each other's breath, though neither bothered to put any more distance between them.

"Have you been smoking in here? I found some cigarette butts in the pipes," Mello said, glaring in Matt's direction, but it was pretty obvious that he was just changing the subject. He bent down again to retrieve his chocolate bar from the floor, his spine protruding on the bare skin of lower back as he did so.

"Uh, maybe," Matt answered in an avoidant manner, even though there wasn't really any hope of denying it, not when it came to Mello.

"I've told you a hundred times not to smoke inside." Mello's tone suggested a threat, but also tiredness, and the kind of exasperation that only comes when you've completely given up on something. Matt almost would've said he sounded depressed, but Mello didn't get depressed, did he?

"Sorry, my bad," Matt returned, just standing there and staring at his friend through his goggles as he braced himself for the inevitable explosion. It never came.

"I'm going to bed," Mello said, tearing off the topmost portion of the chocolate bar's wrapping and adding it to the chaos that was the bathroom floor, then he turned on his heel and abandoned the scene. Surely he wasn't expecting Matt to clean everything up? Matt was even more slovenly and nondomestic than Mello, and that was saying something.

"…Alright, I'm going out to smoke," Matt said cautiously as he followed Mello out into the main portion of their apartment, but Mello only grunted in agreement, plopping onto the bed with his boots still on and gnawing at his chocolate bar as he glowered up at the inkblot-esque stains on the ceiling. Matt hurried out of the apartment before Mello could change his mind, as he was inclined to do, closing the door behind him and welcoming the wintry chill of December as it crept into the corners of his vest. Their apartment complex was set up more like a motel, such that each room could be accessed directly from the outside – maybe it had even been a motel in a previous lifetime. That would explain a lot, Matt thought, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he made his way down the rickety metal steps and sat on the bottom one so he could stretch out his legs as he smoked.

Matt had only just lit up, though, when he was up on his feet again, walking restlessly onward without really knowing why. That wasn't like him, 'cause he was more of a lounge-around-and-let-life-come-to-you kind of guy. It was practically pitch black outside, aside from a few flickering streetlights, and it was quiet tonight for the city. Matt didn't see anyone as he rounded the corner into an alley, glanced around himself, and then as discreetly as possible removed the cover from a manhole. This is crazy, he thought to himself, staring down into the darkness of the tunnel, then he sighed, crouched down, and began to climb down the rusty ladder, knowing that this probably wasn't a good idea but unable to stop what he'd started. This must've been what Mello felt like on a daily basis.

Spotting what he thought was the floor with the light off his cigarette, Matt held his breath and hopped down onto the concrete ledge just next to the sludgy river of sewage. It smelled badly of human waste, and Matt had to put out a perfectly good cigarette, having lost all appetite. As he ground it out somewhat mournfully with the sole of one chunky black boot, Matt meanwhile fished a lighter out of his pocket and flicked it to life, casting the minute light about himself and wishing that he had brought a flashlight, or better yet not come down here at all. There was no way he was going to find Mello's rosary down here, no way in hell. It was a stupid idea and Matt knew it – but that's what Mello did to him, made him stupid and delirious and otherwise out of his mind, because when it came to Mello, Matt would forgo all rationality and just feel it with his heart.

If Matt's sense of direction hadn't failed him, he'd come in about eight buildings to the right of their apartment, so if he headed back to the left that would place him directly under their room. Unfortunately the wall of brick placed between Matt and his desired destination kind of put a dent in that plan, but Matt figured if he kept heading down this path and eventually found a place to turn left, then headed back to the north, he would eventually get there, so he set off southward down the two-way tunnel that was available to him. He didn't have a ball of string to unwind behind him or a trail of breadcrumbs to leave, and he sure as hell wasn't going to waste his cigarettes for such a purpose, so hopefully he could retain the directions in his head because he wasn't really sure how he would explain this one to Mello if he got himself lost, or if his phone would even get enough reception down here for him to call for help. Most people would have turned back at that point, but Matt continued, even when every direction he took in the sewer looked the same and he had to keep doubling back as he hit dead ends. Luckily Matt was used to crawling dungeons in video games and had unintentionally trained his brain to deal with such situations, so even after wandering for more than ten minutes and making a maze of detours, he was fairly certain he was currently standing below their apartment, give or take thirty feet. He didn't see anything rosary-like in the vicinity, but then again he didn't see much of anything because it was so dark, so Matt crouched closer to the ground and began to examine it with the aid of his lighter, then he stood up, moved forward a few feet, and examined the next patch of the path, rinse and repeat.

Even as he did so, Matt was well aware of the fact that it was a fool's errand. The rosary would've gone the same way the used water poured out of their apartment's plumbing, and that was straight into the sewage, and of course there was no hope of retrieving it from there. It had probably been swept away to some waste management and water filtering facility by now. Not to mention he was being a damned hypocrite, after insisting to Mello in the bathroom that he should give it up as a lost cause. Still, for some reason, Matt had never wanted anything more in the world than he wanted to find Mello's rosary for him right now. It meant so much to Mello… but, no, that wasn't all. It meant something to Matt too. It meant a lot. That worn out string of beads was the same as all of the years they'd known one another, a central set piece in every memory Matt had of his and Mello's childhood, and moreover it represented the people they had been before things like becoming the next L and beating Near had irreparably warped them. That rosary was the small, suppressed part of them that still had faith in something, that could still give half a damn about the things in life that were so simple and yet so unreachable for people like them, like having a family and being loved by someone. Mello deserved to have at least that much, and Matt, he couldn't live without it.

Matt had probably wandered around in circles for at least an hour, checking and double-checking, with no results. He had developed a headache from the smell that surrounded him and seemed to permeate every pore of his body, or maybe it was because he had pulled his goggles up onto his forehead in order to see better and they were digging into his skin. Even his eyes were beginning to ache and sting, either from the atmosphere or from lack of sleep, and Matt sighed, knowing that it was time to give up… that he'd already given up on it before he'd even come here, really, because it was gone, all of it. They were grown-ups now and couldn't afford to cling to the past like spoiled children and cry over losing their favorite toys – so why was he crying? This was fucking dumb, Matt decided, wiping at his eyes and pulling the goggles back down when he saw something, a glint, probably the plastic of the lenses – except it wasn't. It was a strand of shimmery red and white beads, caught on the edge of a drain grate just above his head – no, if this was anything, it was a fucking miracle – and after jumping for it a few times, Matt finally got it off. Even through the thickness of his leather gloves, he could tell just by the touch of it, the weight and the size, that this was it. This was Mello's, and in a sense, it was his, or at least that's the way Matt felt as he pocketed the object. Finding the rosary, holding it and having it with him, right there in the pocket on his chest… it felt like coming home after a long day and being with the one person who meant something. It felt like being with Mello.

It took much less time to backtrack than to find his way through the sewer for the first time, and so Matt made it back to the entrance within five minutes and without incident, climbing the ladder and creeping out of the manhole after the sounds of a man and woman laughing and chatting had trailed off into silence. It would be pretty fail if he managed all of that, only to attract attention to himself at the last minute and have the cops called on him or something. That was the last thing Mello needed. But then Matt supposed he should really be worrying about himself in such a scenario, not how him getting arrested would affect Mello, huh? Easier said than done.

It had actually gotten so late that the sun was coming up, and Matt checked his cell phone, shocked to see that it was already 7am. That meant he'd been searching for Mello's rosary for over three hours. He picked up the pace, worried that he was going to get an earful from his roommate. The fact that he had no missed calls was promising, as Mello would usually dial him multiple times in such cases, but then that could've been due to lack of reception. Matt jogged up the last few steps to the apartment door and fumbled for his key for a moment, then realized he hadn't locked the door at all because he had originally intended to just sit and smoke and then go back in. It wasn't exactly a good neighborhood for leaving your door open, to make the understatement of the century, but rather than being concerned, Matt felt more sorry for whoever would be unlucky enough to attempt stealing something from this particular apartment when his trigger-happy friend who had literally been a Mafia boss happened to be there. Visually it was difficult to tell if anyone had broken in, since the floor was always scattered with crap and the drawers were always pulled out anyway, but judging from the way Mello was snoring, it had been an uneventful night at the apartment. Probably Mello hadn't even noticed he'd left.

Closing the door behind him as quietly as possible, Matt inched his way across the room to the bed where Mello slept, now sprawled on his stomach, chocolate bar still in hand. The uptight blonde slept lightly and little, so these were rare moments, when Matt got to see him so peaceful. Hopefully Mello was dreaming about something pleasant, in a world far away from the one that Kira was trying to take away from them, day by day… a world without Near or the need to be the next L, maybe even a world without Matt, if that made Mello happier. Smiling softly to himself, Matt draped the rosary over the frame of the bed just above Mello's head, as if it were a dream catcher that could take away all of the nightmares and pain of this existence. It would be the first thing Mello saw when he woke up in the morning.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Matt lowered himself onto the couch, noting the strain in his muscles from the unusual amount of physical exertion he had put himself through that day. It was quiet for a moment but for Mello's breathing, then the springs creaked as Matt rolled over onto his stomach in an unconscious imitation of his friend's posture, crossing his striped sleeves atop the arm of the sofa and leaning his chin into them as he looked at Mello. Maybe he would stay awake a little longer – he couldn't wait to see Mello's face, when he woke up in the morning and saw the rosary he thought was gone for good. His eyes would go all wide, his lips would drop, and he would show a whole swirl of emotions at once, a whole painting on his face: confusion, accusation, maybe even happiness, if Matt was lucky. But then his eyes were drooping, and he drifted off, still watching, still waiting, always aching; and it was all worth it.

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><p>AN: Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and please take the time to review - even a word or two really means a lot to the author! Personally I've developed a bit of a phobia about putting my fanfiction online because I always get tons of hits and very few reviews, and I take that to mean that everyone thinks my writing is abysmally stupid. I'm surprised I'm even posting this, but I guess I'll just go with it, so I'm going to try to post a new fanfic every week or so. Does anyone even still like Death Note except me? lul...


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